


Knowing Where to End

by the_rck



Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Genre: Anger, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Hatred, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Imprisonment, Psychological Torture, Referenced Dara/Oberon, Thwarted ambition, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 10:13:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20704274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: When I saw Oberon's cortège and realized that it actually held his corpse, I knew I wasn't going to rule in Amber.





	Knowing Where to End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gammarad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/gifts).

> Title from Jin Ha's "Cemetery" (as translated by the author).
> 
> So I suddenly have Ideas about Dara. Thank you for that Gammarad. I hadn't ever gotten her to make sense before.
> 
> I'm not actually sure if Dara/Oberon is more or less incesty than Corwin/Dara, partly because canon isn't firm about how Dara is related to Benedict and partly because I'm not sure whether half-uncle or grandfather is the closer in degree. Anyway, it's Amber with slightly more than canon levels of messed up relationships.
> 
> Not that Dara thinks there was a single thing wrong with her/Oberon.

When I saw Oberon's cortège and realized that it actually held his corpse, I knew I wasn't going to rule in Amber.

"He meant to live," Dworkin Patternmaker told me. Za showed me a small wound in Oberon's neck, one just covered by his collar. "That's not how any of the children would have done it. None of them would hide it." Za studied me, and I knew za was trying to decide whether or not I'd slid that blade home.

I shook my head minutely, denying responsibility. "Who then?" The question sounded harsher than I meant it to.

Oberon dead was too big a thing for me to comprehend. I haven't loved often, but the only person I wouldn't have betrayed for Oberon was-- Well, actually, no one. I'd sacrifice every single one of Oberon's children-- including the two who were also mine-- and most of reality if he asked. I'd want to know why, but I'd certainly do it if he had a reason that made sense.

"He did part of what he meant to," Dworkin said. Za shrugged. "The Pattern stands stronger than it ever was, but Corwin refused the throne."

I choked. I wanted to shift into a creature that could rend universes. I wanted to shriek my anger and grief so that no one could ignore it. I wanted to weep oceans dry.

Instead, I nodded and met the eyes of the most dangerous person in all of Shadow. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Za inclined zans head. "And I for yours." Za let that sit for several seconds then added, "Do not come to Amber. Your children may when they have the means to protect themselves." Za knew. Of course, za knew. 

Dworkin Patternmaker.

I was in my human, female form and dressed in the style of Amber, so I dropped zan a curtsey. "As you wish."

Zans expression softened a little. "You and they will be safest within the boundaries of the Courts. There's no benefit for any of you in leaving. Build your power here." 

It was very much a command, so I curtseyed again. I expected za to start the cortège moving again, but nothing moved except the wind.

"Corwin made a Pattern." The words were the barest whisper of sound, the most secret of secrets entwining itself with the coming storm. "A real one. Delaying its rise as a power is not a thing I can do. That's in Corwin's hands and in Merlin's."

Patternmaker was not an epithet I'd ever expected to apply to Corwin. I doubt anyone had. I tried to think of ways that I could distract Corwin and prevent him returning to his new place of power.

Dworkin made a clicking noise and started the beasts hauling Oberon's bier moving again.

I had my orders.

I watched them out of sight. I wept, then, and raged. Those worlds burned until the water boiled, and I salted the earth after just for spite.

Corwin would not enjoy whatever came next; I probably wouldn't either.

****

Corwin made a bitter, public breakup easy. Corwin made everything easy except the part about me ruling Amber. Even without Oberon, I could have had Amber if Corwin had done what we expected him to do.

My old dueling master had been a better person than anyone spawned by Amber, and I grieved zans death, but... Being tied to Corwin romantically held no advantage; his murderous lack of courtesy was simply the easiest excuse to sever the connection.

I had contingency plans, many of them, but none of them included Oberon really dead, Corwin stubbornly unwilling, and a second fucking Pattern altering the shape of Shadow. Weirdly, the last of those gave me my best hope for purpose with two supports blown out from under my plans. Without purpose, I'd have frozen for long enough that Mandor would have had all three of my children. The Courts eat their own.

I couldn't have Amber. I couldn't have Oberon. I still had my children. I still had my place in House Sawall. I still had my alliance with Martin.

Probably.

Martin might see my interests as endangering his now that things had changed. Part of dumping Corwin was letting Martin know that I wasn't using Corwin as leverage against Amber. I wouldn't bring war to Rebma.

After the storm passed, I had to seek Martin out. He wasn't actively avoiding me, but he was more guarded than he had been before. "You're welcome to visit any time," I told him the first time our paths intersected. "No one else quite understands."

He eyed me then nodded. "My father will be sending an ambassador. I'm sure there will be reasons to go back and forth."

I didn't take the leer that he gave me seriously, but I took a half step back because I knew that he'd realize I was playing to the audience. We were both Oberon's apprentices. Neither of us could afford to let anyone recognize the fullest implications of that.

Not one of his surviving children had had as much of his time and attention as Martin and I had.

"Merlin still wants to see Amber," I said. "He wants to--" I gestured vaguely to indicate things that a young person might want to do away from zans mother.

"He's my friend," Martin said.

I could almost see Martin wadding up his centuries to shove them into a pocket no one else could find. He could have claimed at least some of them, but even half those years would have made Merlin look at him as mentor rather than peer.

There were so many things Merlin couldn't know.

"Corwin made a Pattern," Martin said, entirely as if it was something that normally came up in small talk.

"Did he?" I thought that Martin already knew that I knew. "That... makes things precarious. For Merlin." I tapped my little finger on the stem of my wine glass in a rhythm that meant 'run interference.'

"Dad likes him," Martin observed. "Merlin and I are a chance for all of them to do better than their father did." He met my eyes with a look that was altogether serious. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said. There was enough of a pause before the next sentence that I knew the two referred to different things. "Corwin and deathless romance are apparently incompatible."

Martin was less ambitious, less interested in amassing power, than I was or than Oberon had been, but he knew me as well as I knew him. He understood what I had lost to Corwin's poor choices.

If the Unicorn had chosen a different King of Amber, Martin would have lost almost as much through Corwin's refusal of the throne.

"I was a silly girl," I said, inserting a note of entirely unfeigned anger. "All of the stories lied." I hadn't actually expected them to be true, but Corwin had gone off-script at a supremely inconvenient moment.

"My father loves him," Martin said. There was a hint of warning in that, but no threat of interference. Martin didn't actually like Corwin much.

I smiled.

****

Corwin made kidnapping him easy.

He quarreled with Fiona and with Julian. Caine took Julian's side. Florimel took Corwin's. Llewella requested popcorn.

Corwin told them all to go to hell and went looking for somewhere to brood. No one actually expected to hear from him after that, not at any particular time, so it took a very long time for his siblings to realize that he'd vanished.

"I won't lie," Martin told me, after, when we happened to intersect in the Royal Gardens. "I just won't answer what isn't asked."

"Or what you don't know." My response was, I knew, as good as an admission.

He spread his hands with his fingers pointing downward, palms toward me. "I know nothing." He shook his head. "Be careful, Dara. Many things wash to shore that weren't meant for surface eyes." He frowned. "That doesn't translate as well as I hoped. I still haven't mastered the idiom of the Courts."

The part about the language was a lie. He had other words he could have used. He wanted the effect of a proverb mangled.

I didn't bother saying that I was always careful; Martin would never have believed me.

****

Corwin paced for two days, stopping only occasionally to piss. I'd given him access to food and water, but he didn't eat or drink. I didn't know if he feared poison or simply didn't recognize the pattern of lines that would call it forth.

Corwin was only about seventeenth on my list of priorities. I wasn't going to watch him constantly, and I wasn't going to waste time fetching and carrying for him. The Patternmaker-- the _other_ Patternmaker-- had only said delay. I wouldn't be stuck playing jailor forever.

He took three weeks to figure out that the walls wanted blood in trade for sustenance. If I hadn't known him as a Patternmaker, that would have told me. He got angrier, but he didn't lose weight or slow down.

His grandfather would have sliced the walls of that prison, so I was a little surprised that Corwin didn't try. Realizing that he didn't know, that he wouldn't have a chance to learn until after he escaped me, filled me with the warmth of meat from a fresh kill.

I could have told him, could have helped him learn, but this was Corwin. He would have his Pattern for a very, very long time, possibly an eternity. I would never have Amber. I'd never again feel the chilly energy of potential when I touched Oberon's Trump. Corwin would have, and I would not.

But, right then, I did.

I took my time considering that. I let the idea sit in the back of my mind as I bound a Ty'iga to guard Merlin.

Martin couldn't always be there, after all.

When I finally let Corwin see me, he lunged for me. He looked surprised when he bounced off an invisible wall before he reached me. Then he stilled and studied me. "All this for a murder?" he asked.

I waved a dismissive hand. "For love, hate, or power, perhaps, but not for that." I shifted my facial features slightly to emphasize a contemptuous expression. "Merlin is too innocent to understand you, but I do." I spread one hand on the barrier that separated us. "How long can you live without touch? Without conversation? Without anything but this?" I waved my other hand at his prison.

For a moment, his eyes were frightening, and I almost flinched. "I know my mind very well," he said, baring his teeth at me. "I've built better prisons." He turned his back on me. "Amateur."

That and having minders for Merlin moved Corwin to ninth on my list of priorities.

I couldn't break him or even permanently bend him, not without breaking his Pattern first, and the options for that-- No one would bleed my child to kill zans father. I could probably hurt Corwin, possibly very badly, but Corwin Patternmaker wasn't the man Oberon had known and taught me to manipulate. That man would have wanted to rule in Amber.

That man could not have made a Pattern.

Finding out what had changed might be all I got out of obeying Dworkin.

Corwin put on a bespelled collar in trade for soap, a toothbrush, and clean underwear. He also fought to get his hands on my throat the instant I was within reach. He came very close even as lightning from the collar scrambled his nerves. He trembled for hours after I left.

The risk of that was oddly enticing. I had no interest in seeing him win, but watching him struggle gave me joy. Still, I was careful of the physical risk.

For access to two books, he watched a teaching illusion, one aimed at children too fearless, that showed what the Abyss did to those who ventured too close. His sister, the one Oberon said he loved wrongly, had fallen in, and Corwin wept to know how she'd died.

After that... Well, Deirdre was a lever that seldom failed. I knew what she looked like, how she gestured, how her voice moved. I could bring her near enough that Corwin could almost touch her. I could make her scream in agony or in anger or whimper in disappointment at her brother's betrayal.

Each time, Corwin flinched. I don't think he forgot she wasn't real, and he always gave me a bitter smile when I conjured her, but he reacted physically to her illusory pain. Possibly, he was only giving me what I wanted.

But, if that had been the case, I'd have expected him to respond equally well to illusions of Eric or Random or Fiona or one of the others. He didn't. He reacted, but the pain wasn't as reliable.

I never showed him Brand, not even with Deirdre, and I never showed him Oberon. I wasn't sure enough that Brand was dead, and I was too certain that Oberon was.

And Corwin might read my fondness for his father in the images and use it as a weapon. He wanted to hurt me; he never hid that, not even when I touched him or let him touch me. If I slipped once, he would kill me.

He learned to read the endings of books first. I burned three of his first dozen books before he could finish them. He learned forty-three languages and memorized the Scripture of the Serpent. He composed vicious, flyting poems in my honor and sang them if I looked too happy.

I let drop lies and truths about his kin and hoped he'd either choke or starve.

He baited me, trying to find the raw nerve that would make me overstep my intentions. He found Martin immediately and my frustrated ambition eventually but never guessed Oberon. He never pushed me on Merlin-- we had a mutual silence there-- and I never mentioned having other children.

Sometimes, I left him alone for weeks. When he was bored, he couldn't escape me, but I could play politics or garden or craft spells. Once, I stayed away for six months but dropped a fresh, silver rose into his cell once a week so that he'd know I hadn't forgotten.

In spite of the magics around his prison, he somehow kept those roses fresh for a decade. When he let them go, telling me he was bored of them, they crumbled into dust. He met my eyes then, and I knew that the game was getting riskier.

"Almost everything crumbles eventually," I told him with a nod of acknowledgment. "Martin would say that the sea doesn't, but..." I tapped my lip. "That's only technically correct."

For a year after that, I only gave him Rebman things-- food, clothing, books. His walls grew illusions of kelp, and an occasional shark stalked him, always in his peripheral vision.

"You're bored," he told me after eleven months of sharks.

"I'm obedient," I answered then frowned as if I hadn't been wanting to say it for years. "I was ordered to delay you." I gave him a smile with fire and fangs.

He looked enlightened but then spent the next three years trying to trick me into revealing who I obeyed. He hadn't guessed. I'm not sure he ever did. An unidentified greater foe kept him playing in the shallows for much longer than he might have. He still wanted to kill me, but I had something he needed, and it bought time.

Corwin would escape eventually. I needed time to build power. I needed time to maneuver my children into more protected positions and to let them grow. 

Five days before Merlin released him, Corwin said, "I might hate you more than I ever did Eric."

I had touched him. I took it as the compliment it was. 

I didn't miss him when he left.

**Author's Note:**

> I have reasons for Oberon's pronouns. Anywhere else you think should have a third person, indefinite gender pronoun probably actually should.


End file.
